By Laura Bies
The U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry released a 900-page draft Farm Bill, entitled the Agricultural Act of 2026, on June 23, 2026. This follows the April 30 passage of the House’s version of the Farm Bill, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.
With the midterm elections coming, time is running out for Congress to finalize a Farm Bill. The last Farm Bill expired in 2023, and Congress has since issued some extensions and reauthorized other programs through the One Big Beautiful Bill, but the need for a full, final Farm Bill remains.
The Senate’s draft bill would reauthorize the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), increasing the program’s payment limitation for the first time in the program’s history to $125,000. CRP provides both financial and technical assistance to landowners who remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant approved species that will improve environmental quality.
The draft bill also maintains the requirement that 10% of funding through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program go to wildlife practices. Like the House bill, the draft Senate bill includes a new Forest Conservation Easement Program, replacing the repealed Healthy Forests Reserve Program, as well as permanently authorizing what is now the feral swine eradication and control pilot program, with $150 million in mandatory funding over the next five years.
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